In case you haven't heard, the Patriot Act's Section 215 is set to expire June 1st. That's the provision that National Security Agency uses to justify its bulk data collection practices. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is working to make sure the current rules remain in place. McConnell introduced a bill earlier this week that would extend the Patriot Act's justification of post-9/11 surveillance until 2020. What's more, the senator already put the bill on the Senate calendar using a rule that allows him to bypass the usual committee process.

Fair artist compensation from internet radio and streaming services is quite the hot topic of late, and now members of Congress are joining the debate. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, alongside the musicFIRST Coalition, introduced the Fair Play Fair Pay Act today that would end regulations that don't require terrestrial radio stations to pay royalties to artists and labels. As it stands, those AM/FM stations available in your car only pay licensing fees to songwriters and publishers. Organizations like ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) handle those agreements, collecting fees every time a copyrighted song is played on the radio or during a public performance. For its part in managing those agreements, ASCAP brought in over $1 billion last year.

Posting "revenge porn" in England and Wales is becoming a criminal offense. It's thanks to an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which was passed last year by the House of Lords and due to receive Royal Assent later today. Anyone found guilty of distributing explicit images to force victims into sexual activity or to humiliate them will now face up to two years in prison. It's designed to cover photos and videos that are shared without permission both on and offline, including those posted to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other social networks.

Back in May, the US government began to process a bill aimed at reining in the NSA's powers of surveillance -- if Google, Apple and Microsoft are sending group letters, you know it's an important bill. However, it's been left on Capitol Hill, rejected by the Senate. It failed a procedural vote, after senior Republicans said it would affect efforts to defend the country from enemies. It fell short of the 60 votes needed, gathering 58 to 42 votes. It's now unlikely to become law, as Republicans (who made up most of the opposition), will hold a majority in the Senate in the new year.

In California, school officials are now required to be more transparent when tracking a student's online activity. Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill earlier this week requiring parents to be notified when a school is peering at their kids' online activity. What's more, schools have to delete collected social media posts within a year of the student leaving or their 18th birthday. The law comes in response to the Glendale Unified school district hiring an outside firm to monitor Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds in 2013 -- without informing students or their parents that they were being watched. "I believe that as the world changes and this type of monitoring becomes more commonplace, legislation like this is critical to protecting the privacy of our children," said California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto. Glendale Unified says it doesn't keep posts that it's alerted to via the monitoring service.

After getting the approval of both the House and the Senate, the US cellphone unlocking bill needed just one more signature to remove the carrier-swapping restriction. Today, President Barack Obama signed the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act into law, making it once again legal for smartphone owners to unlock their device without direct permission from the carrier it's locked to. If you'll recall, the effort began as a petition, and is what the White House is calling "an example of democracy at its best." Should you be in need of refresher on the finer points, we explain the whole thing right here.

Well, it seems like the US cellphone unlocking bill didn't get held up legislation after all: the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act just passed through the House of Representatives with unanimous support. The measure reverses the 2012 decision that made phone unlocking a violation of copyright law and frees consumers from the mercy of their cellular provider, but it's not law yet -- the bill still needs the signature of President Obama. Still, that's almost a formality: the "bulk unlock" measure portion of the legislation that caused waves in the Senate has since been removed from the bill. Its text is clean and simple: unlocks can be "initiated by the owner" of any device or "by another person at the direction of the owner" with the express purpose of connecting to the wireless network of their choice. Sounds good here.

Journalists in the US and UK may be relatively safe from the government's wrath when they report on surveillance leaks from the likes of Edward Snowden, but the Australian press may have to tread carefully before too long. Attorney General George Brandis has presented a bill that would make it a crime to reveal information that might "prejudice the effective conduct" of "special intelligence operations," such as those from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). It also creates new charges specific to people who might become whistleblowers, such as contractors and the spies themselves.

The US is now that much closer to a law that makes it legal to unlock your phone. A few months after the House of Representatives passed a bill that would authorize unlocking, the Senate has passed its own measure accomplishing mostly the same thing. The biggest difference is their attitude toward bulk unlocking; unlike the House, the Senate has no major objections to resellers unlocking devices en masse. Both legislative branches still have to harmonize their bills before the President can sign something into law, and it wouldn't be surprising if the volume unlocking issue holds things up. However, it's good to know that the government is largely on the same page -- and that you might not have to rely on the kindness of carriers to get more control over the phone you bought.

Perseverance pays off, it seems. Just weeks after California's senate shot down a bill that would require a remote kill switch feature on smartphones, the legislature has passed an amended version of the same would-be law. Senate critics dropped their opposition after changes were made to both give companies more time to implement the technology and explicitly left tablets out of the regulation. Apple and Microsoft are also onside after initially objecting to the measure, too. There's still no certainty that the kill switch will become official and let you disable a stolen phone from afar, but it's now a realistic possibility -- much to the chagrin of big US carriers.

Concerned that not enough is being done to help kids with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects? Kentucky's Senate has just passed a bill that would count computer-programming classes as foreign language credits. That way, if students wanted to learn to code in favor of, say, French or Spanish, they'd be able to count that study toward their high school graduation. Senate Bill 16 will now pass to the Kentucky State House, but it seems like the sort of sensible policy that we'd expect from the home of Bourbon.

After five years of debate and a 117-4 vote, New Zealand's Parliament has passed a bill that says computer programs are not considered inventions and are therefore ineligible for patents. However, the phrasing of the bill is flexible enough to provide some leeway. Since "products or processes" are understood to be patentable inventions, software that is integral to the implementation of a process designed to improve hardware can be included in the terms of a patent application. The text of the bill, intended to replace the outdated Patents Act of 1953, states, "Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no 'inventive step' in software development, as 'new' software invariably builds on existing software." You can come to your own conclusions on the matter by checking out the bill at the source link below.

Netflix has been lobbying hard for changes to a law that it believed barred it from sharing the videos users watch on social media services, and now the law has changed. After H.R. 6671 passed through Congress last year without objection, President Barack Obama signed it into law today. As it previously existed, the Video Privacy Protection Act would have required users to approve sharing of each title watched in writing. The amendment removes that restriction, and should see the Facebook features already on Netflix internationally available in the US, soon. Hit the source link to read the bill itself, whether you're increasingly wary of the reach of social media, or an Open Graph addict.

We don't know if this has customers' interests at heart, or if AT&T's call center staff were just sick to the eyeballs of having to explain people's bills to them, but the end result is the same either way. Folks who join AT&T or switch to a new plan are now increasingly being offered "video bills" that provide a "line-by-line visual and audio tour" of individual items on their statement. Judging from the sample video after the break, it seems that only the numbers inside the video are personally tailored, while the voice track is predetermined and makes the difficult assumption that all AT&T subscribers are called Brian.

See that guy? The one in the bubble? He's probably up to no good. Thanks to President Obama, however, he's going to have a much harder time duping innocent young ladies like the one also shown here. Per The Hill, the POTUS has just signed into law the Safe Web Act, which extends the Federal Trade Commission's authority to "clamp down on Internet fraud and online scammers based abroad." In simpler terms, it enables the entity to share data about "cross-border online fraud with foreign law enforcement authorities" through September of 2020. According to an unnamed official within the FTC, the existing edition of this act has allowed it to conduct over 100 investigations into cross-border fraud and scam, but it's unclear how much crime was stopped and how many people were needlessly annoyed. We kid, we kid.

Not a month after Mach's last carrier billing deal, UK network providers Vodafone, Three, O2 and Everything Everywhere are getting in on the action. The company's direct billing solutions will initially allow the networks to charge app and online purchases straight to your bill, with in-app sales joining them at a later date. Don't expect this to be implemented immediately, however, as the agreement covers the back-end processing -- the individual carriers will be responsible for turning it on customer-side. They'll likely inform you when they hit the switch and your phone bill becomes a monthly surprise.

Google just chalked up one of the more important victories for driverless cars. California Governor Jerry Brown has signed bill SB1298 into law, formalizing the legal permissions and safety standards needed to let automated vehicles cruise on state-owned roads. While the bill lets anyone move forward with their plans, it's clear from the ceremony that local technology darling Google is the primary impetus for the measure: Brown visited Google's Mountain View headquarters to put ink to paper, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin oversaw the signing with his Google Glass eyewear on full display. If you're dying to see driverless vehicles become mainstays of the Golden State, the official act making that possible is already available to watch after the break.

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Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:54:00 -040021|20333247http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/26/data-act-passes-house-vote/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/26/data-act-passes-house-vote/http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/26/data-act-passes-house-vote/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsThe last time a proposed law captured our attention it was so widely loathed it was never even put to a vote, but today we bring you the kind of no-brainer legislation that seems to have strong support on both sides of the aisle. The US House of Representatives has passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA), a bill that calls for the creation of an independent board to log all federal spending on a single, centralized website. What's more, these expenses need to be recorded with identifiers and markup languages that make them more easily searchable. As Computerworld notes, the vote happens to come on the heels of a recent dust-up involving the US General Services Administration spending $823,000 on a conference in Vegas -- precisely the sort of excess this proposed website would be designed to expose. The next step, of course, is for the bill to win Senate approval, though for now it seems the legislation has garnered strong bi-partisan support: in a rare showing, all of the lawmakers who discussed the DATA Act on the House floor argued in favor of it.

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Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:34:00 -040021|20224751http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/senate-black-box-bill-could-see-2015-car-models-ship-with-data-r/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/senate-black-box-bill-could-see-2015-car-models-ship-with-data-r/http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/senate-black-box-bill-could-see-2015-car-models-ship-with-data-r/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsBlack boxes aren't just for airplanes anymore, it seems. Though car companies have been installing the devices at their discretion since the early aughts, a new bill, ominously entitled Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, has just passed Senate approval containing a provision that would mandate the inclusion of these Event Data Recorders in all automobiles produced from 2015 and on. Privacy fans may already be reaching for those protesting pitchforks, but keep in mind this legislation still needs to pass the House of Representatives on its way to becoming law. And given its other, more controversial elements (i.e. revoking passports for unpaid back taxes), it could still head back to the recycle bin. If it does pass Congressional muster, you'll still have ownership of any collected data, so long as the court doesn't require you to hand it over. Regardless of the outcome, we wouldn't breathe a sigh of relief just yet -- your car might be snooping on you as we speak. Just check your owner's manual.

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Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:13:00 -040021|20220527http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/21/verizon-cramming-congress-charges/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/21/verizon-cramming-congress-charges/http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/21/verizon-cramming-congress-charges/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsOkay, okay -- landlines are still useful. But rapidly growing, they are not. That said, Verizon is caving to congressional pressure in a relatively minor way, announcing that it'll be banning certain third-party charges on landline bills. In political circles, the process is known as "cramming," where customers (oftentimes unknowingly) submit their number to certain third-party add-ons that have generated some $10 billion in revenue over the past five years. Sen. Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia is applauding the move, and also encouraging Congress to make this commonplace across all carriers. Curiously, there's no mention of mobile blocking, where consumers are regularly duped into subscribing to recurring fees via text-based competitions and contests. Perhaps when we've all moved on to telepathy, the feds can get right on that.

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Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:27:00 -040021|20198194http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/17/congress-passes-bill-opening-up-tv-spectrum-to-next-gen-wifi-net/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/17/congress-passes-bill-opening-up-tv-spectrum-to-next-gen-wifi-net/http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/17/congress-passes-bill-opening-up-tv-spectrum-to-next-gen-wifi-net/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsIt may seem a bit odd to see tech industry groups like the CTIA and CEA praising the passage of the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 by Congress, but that rather mundane-sounding bill has provisions attached to it that both groups and others have been pushing for years to happen. In an effort to cover the cost of the payroll tax extension, the bill also sets aside a large block of so-called unlicensed spectrum for auction, which is expected to bring in upwards of $25 billion. That spectrum had previously been used for TV broadcast use, but is now being eyed by various parties for next-generation WiFi networks, which could cover greater distances and potentially be used to bolster existing wireless networks. As part of the bill, Congress has also set aside a slice of spectrum that will be used as part of a nationwide network for public safety agencies. As The New York Times notes, however, it will see be quite a while before anything trickles down to consumers, with the auctions themselves at least a year or two away. The CEA and CTIA's statements can be found after the break.

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Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:19:00 -050021|20174580http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/08/congress-passes-bill-giving-faa-11-billion-for-gps-air-traffic-control/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/08/congress-passes-bill-giving-faa-11-billion-for-gps-air-traffic-control/http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/08/congress-passes-bill-giving-faa-11-billion-for-gps-air-traffic-control/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsIt took awhile, and the price tag is quite a bit steeper than previously thought (shocking, right?), but the FAA is finally getting the funding it needs to bring the nation's air traffic control system up to date. Congress just passed the bill to make it happen, allotting $11 billion to the FAA to upgrade the nation's 35 busiest airports air traffic controls from radar to GPS. The deadline for the conversion is June 2015, and when complete, it'll allow for more precise positioning of aircraft -- GPS pings for the planes' locations every second, while radar updates their locations every 6 to 12 seconds. With such technology enabled, airplanes will be able to take-off and land more closely together while utilizing steeper descents than is currently possible to conserve fuel. So, now that we've got the new traffic control system to improve airline punctuality, we just need the FAA and the FCC to team up and eliminate the "Terrible 10,000 feet" and flying might actually be fun.

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Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:42:00 -050021|20167529http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/hawaiis-online-tracking-law-is-all-but-dead-lead-sponsor-confi/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/hawaiis-online-tracking-law-is-all-but-dead-lead-sponsor-confi/http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/hawaiis-online-tracking-law-is-all-but-dead-lead-sponsor-confi/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsThe Hawaii state legislature has apparently pulled an about face on a proposed internet tracking bill, amid swelling concerns from civil libertarians and internet service providers alike. First introduced last week, the controversial measure calls for all ISPs to track and record a user's online activity and identity within individual digital dossiers. The law's supporters trumpeted it as a vital step in protecting "victims of crime," but its momentum has all but come to a halt, now that its lead champion has proclaimed its death. In a recent interview with CNET, Democratic Representative John Mizuno (pictured left) confirmed that his bill has been shelved, attributing the decision to the avalanche of critical feedback he's received (see the coverage links, below). "It's generated a lot of national attention," Mizuno explained. "I've taken into consideration the thousands of e-mails (which were often) colorful and passionate, which is absolutely fine... This bill just isn't ready. It needs a lot of work." Unfortunately, this doesn't mean spell an outright death for the law, as Mizuno still believes that keeping a record of browsing history could help authorities hunt down pedophiles and other evil doers. "I think both would be very strong pieces of evidence if there's going to be a criminal proceeding," he argued. Despite our own fundamental misgivings with Mizuno's approach, it's still encouraging to see politicians respond to public outcry so swiftly and, as with the SOPA debacle, appropriately.

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Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:43:00 -050021|20161586http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/17/sopa-markup-resume-february/%3Futm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%26ncid%3Drss_semi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/17/sopa-markup-resume-february/http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/17/sopa-markup-resume-february/%3Futm_source%3DFeed_Classic%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DEngadget%23commentsThought the White House was able to put enough of smackdown on SOPA to kill the bill entirely? You thought wrong. We'd heard that the extremelycontroversial legislation would be delayed until a few concerns were ironed out, and according to House Judiciary Committee Chair Lamar Smith -- the author of the bill -- markup is expected to continue next month, as soon as both parties return from their retreats. Let's just hope that the "consensus" between Congress and the White House makes the bill look different than what we saw prior to the holiday break. Check out the full press release after the break.

It's turned out to be a big weekend for those concerned about the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. Yesterday came word that a key House hearing originally scheduled for Wednesday will be delayed until there is a "consensus" on the bill, and today the White House has issued an official statement on SOPA (and the Protect IP Act, its counterpart in the Senate) in response to a petition that drew thousands of signatures. While it doesn't go quite as far as to issue a firm veto threat from the President, it does lay out the administration's position in the clearest terms yet, including the condition that any proposed law "must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System." That follows word late last week that Representative Lamar Smith and Senator Patrick Leahy would indeed pull the DNS provisions from SOPA and PIPA. The White House statement is less specific in other respects, but it broadly states that the administration will "not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

In related news, the planned blackouts to protest SOPA and PIPA only seem to be increasing, with the popular xda-developers forum recently announcing that it will go dark at 8AM on January 18th, and return either at 8PM or as soon as it's able to get 50,000 people to sign a pledge to contact their local Senator or Representative.